More of the children who live in resource poor areas of the world have chronic inflammatory injury to their small bowels. The consequences of this inflammation are massive. Dr. Tarr and his team are working on several inter-related projects funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and USAID to understand the processes (including microbes) that underlie this injury, discover biomarkers for this enteropathy, develop novel technology to measure increased gut permeability, and test treatments.

Dr. Tarr’s work spans the fields of microbial genomics, epidemiology, host response, and pathophysiology. He is a strong advocate of applying the best science to the world’s most intractable problems, and child development and microbial influences on this process are the areas in which he has chosen to focus his efforts.